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F 685 
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Copy 1 



SPEECH \ 



.»--* 



HON. FRANCIS P. BLAIR, JR., 

OF MISSOURI, 



THE KANSAS QUESTION; 



DELIVERED 



IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, MARCH 523, 1853, 




WASHINGTON: 
MtNtED AT THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE OFFICE. 

1858. 



SPEECH. 



The House being in the Committee of the VVliole on the 
state of the Union- 
Mr. BLAIR said: 

Mr. Chairman: The attitude of the present Ad- 
ministration upon this Kansas question, and upon 
the question of slavery generally, has been dis- 
cussed in almost every conceivable aspect. Tliere 
is, however, one point of view in which it has not 
been treated in this Hall; and I propose to state, 
as frankly and candidly as I can, the position I 
conceive the Administration and the Democratic 
partyhold upon this question; and also to discuss 
it in its bearings upon a large class of citizens of 
the .southern States — the iion-slaveholding peo])Ie 
of those States. I make no apology for approach- 
ing this subject. 1 consider that the system of 
slavery, which has made the last two or three of 
our Presidents "fetch and carry" at its beck and 
nod; which has held the legislative power of this 
Government in its hands for a series of years; 
which has swayed even the decisions of the Su- 
preme Court — is of sufficient importance to be dis- 
cussed, to be grappled with, and to be subdued; 
and therefore I shall not heed the querulous com- 
plaint that this subject has been too much dis- 
cussed. 

It is this institution which has cast its dark 
shadow upon ourland,and which threatens the ex- 
istence of our free Constitution. I know full well 
that there is an instinct in the hearts of the people 
of this country whose ken looks beyond that of 
theniois; acute intellect, and which tells them that 
from this question they are to apprehend danger 
to the institutions of our country. I am aware 
that those gentlemen who were elected to this 
House as the friends of the President, have suf- 
ficiently exposed the forfeiture of thb pledges 
made by hint in bis letter accepting his npmina- 
tion, made at Cincinnati; and I consider th;\t the 
violation of his pledges contained in his inaugural 
address, and in his instructions to Governor 
Walker, declaring his purpose to secure the peo- 
ple of Kansas the right to decide for themselves 
the institutions under which they were to live, 
have eilso been sufficiently exposed by those who 



were elected here as Democrats. I never expected 
him to redeem those pledges. I always supposed 
they were made to be violated, and shall, there- 
fore, express no surprise at the result. I al- 
ways believed that Mr. Buciianan was nominated 
to carry out the policy of his predecessor, which 
was to fix slavery upon Kansas by force or fraud; 
and, in my opinion, not only Kansas, but the 
whole continent is embraced in this conspiracy. 
Hateful to me as is the design of forcing upon Kan- 
sas a constitution abhored by her people, hateful 
as are the low and mean frauds by which that 
policy has been pushed, hateful as are the crimes 
by which, for the last three years, Kansas has 
been held in subjugation, still more hateful is the 
design which I believe has been deliberately 
formed to extend this constitution over the whole 
country. I shall give the President the benefit 
of his own language, to define his own position 
upon this quesUon". I have in my hand his late 
special message transmitted to us with the Le- 
compton constitution; and I call the attention of 
his friends and admirers to this sentence: 

" Tt has been solemnly adjudged, by the highest judicial 
tribunal known to our laws, that slavery exists in Kansas 
by virtue of the Constitution of the United States. Kansas ' 
is, therefore, at this moment, as much a slave Slate as Geor- 
gia or South Carolina. Without this, the equality of the 
sovereign States composing the Union would be violated, 
and the use and enjoyment of a Territory acquired by the 
common treasure of all the States, would be closed against 
the people and the property of nearly half the members of 
the Confederacy." 

Kansas is here called a State, and aslcive Stale — 
made so by the Constitution, says the President, and 
not by any act of her people. And I desire to know, 
if the Constitution of the United States makes a 
slave State of Kansas, the people of which coun- 
try have never yet given their assent to it, will not 
that same Constitution carry slavery into those 
States which acknowledge that constitution now 
assumed to establish slavery, in State or Territory , 
wherever the local laws are silent? 

Tiie argument of the President in this message, 
and in his annual message, and in the paper pub- 
lished by him in answer to certain gentlemen in 
Connecticut, goes to this point. He declares, in 



effect, that neither Congress, nor the people of a | 
Territory themselves, have the powcrto prohibit 
slavery in the Territories. I think his language 
yoes even to the extent of maintaining that a State 
cannot prohibit or abolish slavery, for, Mr. Chair- 
man, if neither the people of a Territory nor Con- 
gress can prohibit .slavery for the reasons assigned 
by the President, the same reasoning would em- 
brace the States made from territory acquired by 
"the Confederacy of sovereign States." How 
happens it tliat the people of the State of Iowa can 
prohibit nlavery.' That was territory acquired 
iiy the Confederacy of sovereign States. How can 
the people of the State of Iowa reverse the rule 
of justice any more tlian the people of the Terri- 
tory of Iowa.' The whole argument of the Pres- 
ident, the argument of all who agree with him', 
the argument of the Supreme Court, all assign that 
as a reason why the people of a Territory cannot 
prohibit slavery, and why the Congress of the 
United Slates cannot exclude slavery from its 
Territories. It is all grounded on the fact that it 
is unjust to exclude the. property of the people of 
nny one portion of the Confederacy from t'nat 
which was acquired by the people of the whole 
Confederacy. 

Now, Iowa was acquired by the people of the 
whole Confederacy — that is, by the Government, 
representing the whole Confederacy, and it was 
i^uite as just and right for lov/a, while a Terri- 
tory, to exclude slavery, as it v/as when she be- 
came a State. There is no difference. And how 
can this be accomplished ? How can Iowa, or 
any State, prohibit slavery, if the positions taken 
by tlie President and the Democratic party are 
correct.' The people of a Territory have not the 
power to do it; Congress has not the power; and 
yet, when the people of a Territory form a con- 
stitution, and Congre.'ss accepts that, constitution 
— neither of tiiese agencies having the power to 
lixclude slavery— it is found, by some mysterious 
process, that the State thus created has acquired 
a power which neither agency concerned in its 
creation could impart to it. It strikes me, Mr. 
Chairman, that, if it be conceded that there is no 
power in Congress, or in the people of a Terri- 
tory, to exclude the institution of slavery, it fol- 
lows, as a matter of cour.se, logically and legiti- 
mately, that the people of a State cannot do it. 
And, sir, 1 find that the organ of the Administra- 
tion — the Washington Union — has taken that 
ground; and has declared that it drav/s'the con- 
clusion ](>gitimi\tely from the opinion of the Su- 
preme Court in tlic Drod Scott case. 

Mr. J. CLANCY JONES. Will the gentle- 
man be good enough to tell me what that organ 
ie? 1 am not aware that the Administration has 
an organ. 

Mr. BLAIR. If anybody has a light to know 
what that organ is, the gentleman from Pennsyl- 
vania is the man. 

Mr. J. CLANCY JONES. Be good enough 
to tell me. 

Mr. HLMR. I referred to the Washington 
Union by name. 

Mr. j; GLANCY JONES. I merely wish to 
remark that I Icnow of no paper recognized as the 
organ of the Administration. 

Mr. ELAIR. Then the gentleman is ignor- 
ant of what is known by everybody else. 1 say 
that that paper declared in an article some time 



ago that no State in the Union could abolish the 
institution of slavery; that it was unconstitutional 
to do so; and it grounded itself on the decision of 
the Supreme Court. I know that subsequently 
to that, the editor of that paper was elected, by a 
parly vote. Printer of the Senate of the United 
States. That goes very far — though the gentle- 
man [Mr. J. Glanct JoNF.s] repudiates the paper 
as the organ of the Administration — to fix it in 
the minds of the people that the Senate of the 
United States indorses his views on that subject, 
especially when we know that these offices go by 
favor, and that it is very seldom the case that a 
man is elected Printer, or to any other office, 
whose sentiments do not accord with those of the 
majority of the body that elects him. I know that 
last evening, in the other House, a very distin- 
guished gentleman denied that this was the posi- 
tion of the Democratic party, and, in his place, 
called for proof. He denied that anybody from 
the South claimed that a Stale could not prohibit 
slavery witliin its limits, But I undertake to say 
that the claim is embodied in the extract which I 
have read from the President's special message, in 
v/hich he calls Kansas a Statc^ and says that it is a 
slave Stale, and that it tvas mndc a slave Slate by the 
Federal Constitution, and not by the peo]>le. That is 
the language of the President, and I have heard 
from every Democrat that has taken the floor in 
this or the other House, nothing but eulogy of 
that message, since it was published; and 1 con- 
sider that as an indorsement of the doctrines it 
contains. 

But that is not all. This doctrine is contained 
intiie Dred ScoUdecision. Every argument that 
is made to show that neither Congress nor the 
people of a Territory has the power to prohibit 
slavery in the Territory, is equally applicable to 
a State, and is more api^ropriate as ajiplicd to the 
Slates, because the Consiituiion was made for 
the Stales, and not for the Territories, and is the 
supreme law over the constitutions and statutes 
of the States. I think that is the doctrine of the 
Democratic party. They may disclaim it now, 
when it is proclaimed in all its nakedness; but 
they will yet come up to it whenever occasion 
offers to carry their principles to the result in- 
tended. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, I ask those gentlemen 
who have been so clamorous about popular sov- 
ereignty, whether they accept this doctrine.' I 
ask them if they propose to deny all that they 
have said on the subject of popular sovereignty, 
and if they will submit to have this inslitulion 
injected into the Territories and States by what 
is' claimed to be the Constitution of the United 
States.' Will they do it.' I suppose they will 
not be able to resist the majority of their own 
parly in this matter, and they must citlier em- 
brace this doctrine or be read out. 

Now, it matters not to me whalground the lead- 
ers of that parly assume. They may come for- 
ward to sustain this doctrine, and to sustain the 
Siolicy of the last Administration in forcing upon 
Cansas an institution abhorred by a large major- 
itvof the people, and in forcing this institution on 
(Hher Slates and Territories. I do not care how 
many judicial decisions shall -sanction it, or how 
many regiments inay be called out to enforce it; 
in my opinion, the attempt will fail. The Terri- 
tories of this Government cannot be wrested from 



the freomcn to wliom they belong, to be given 
up to slaveholders and their slaves, in order to 
strengthen tht^ oligarchy which rests upon this 
servile institution. 

Gentlemen have proclaimed upon this floor that 
the Leconipion constitution was accepted "by a 
majority of the people of Kansas. Sir, in my 
belief, thi'i-e is not a town or county in Kansas 
where the Lecompton convention could have sat 
and performed the work of fraiui now before us, 
without the support of the Federal bayonets. 1 
do not know'one town or county in Kansas where 
they would have had the power to defy the will 
of the people as they have done, except under the 
protection of the Federal bayonets. The F'rcsi- 
dent tells us, and tells the country, in no equiv- 
ocal language, that the government which he calls 
the rightful government of Kansas, would long 
ago have been subverted by these factious people 
out there, if it had not been supported by t!>e Fed- 
eral Army. This is a clear admission on his part 
that the government there is an usurpation; because 
there can be no government in violation of the sen- 
timents of the people, unless it bean usurpation. 
But, sir, that government would have been sub- ! 
verted long ai^o, but for the interference of the | 
President of the United States; and, whether the ! 
fact be admitted by tlie President or not, it cannot 
be succissfully controverted that the President] 
has exerted iiis entire energies — he has perverted i 
the whole power and patronage of the Federal ji 
Government — to drive free white men out of the ;| 
Territory of Kansas to make room for negro 11 
slaves. 

Now, sir, there is a parallel to the history of 
this transai;iioii which took place many centuries 
ago, and which I find in a book published nearly 
a century smce. But it is so appropriate to the 
events that are now transpiring, that 1 hope the 
House will have the patience to hear me read it jj 
through. I read from Hook's History of Rome, i 
to show how the; great Republic of antiquity fell I 
to decay, when it ceased to cherish the. people as 
landholderSjatid became an oligarchy, by the very 
means now being employed in our own: i 

" It is recorded of Tiberius Gracchus that, in crossing 
Iletruria in his way to Spain, lie ohserved thattlierc were no 
otiior linsliaiiihiien or laliorurs in the country than slaves ; 
and, aceordiMi to ['lutarcli, thi: people — by wriiinjjs affixed | 
to the porticoes, walls, and tombs— daily exhorted Tiberius [ 
to procure a rcstiiution of the public lauds to the injured 
poor. 

" From the earliest times of Rome," proceeds the his- 
torian, ■' it had Ill-en tlm custom of the Romans, when they 
subdued any oi tin; nations in Italy, to deprive them of a 
part of their tiTntory. A porlion oi' these lands were sold, 
and IIr' rot iiivcii |o ilir imonr citizens, on condition, says 
Appiaji. of ilicir paUii^ aiiiuially a tiMitli of the corn and a j 
fiflli oi' lii-' ('luii-oi' till' ti.Ts. b",v~idcs a certain number of 
/ircai .:ii ; I. ,:, . i;ii. i ,i p. : . -^ ofiiiiii'. the rich, by va j 



'•'Tiberius Gracchus, now a tribune of the people, under- 
took to r<nnpdy these disorders ;" * * ♦ *■ "and 
to soften the matter, Tiberius not only proposed to remit 
the fines hitherto incurred by the transgressors of the Liciti- 
iau law, but also, out of the public money, to pay to the 
present pos>essois the piiee of the huiils that wi'ro to bfi 
taken from them." " Nevr (says I'liitareli) was proposed 
a law more mild an'd gentle against inniuliy and oppress 
sion." For those were public lauds of wliicli the rich had 
taken possession with their slaves ; " yet the rich made a. 
mighty clamor about the hardship of being stripi of their 
houses, their lands, their inheritances, the burial places of 
their ancestors, the unspeakable confusion sueli innova- 
tions would produce, the estates in i|Uesiiori (aeiuiired by 
robbery) b(!ing settled upon the wivi's and eliildreii of the 
possessors; and to raise an odium against Graecbns, they 
gave out that ambition, not a view to the public good, had 
put him upon this project." * * » * "The 
poor, on the other hand, complained of the extreme indi- 
gence to which they were reduced, and of their inability to 
bring up children. They eiiumeraied the many battles 
tliey had fought in defense of the Kepnblie. notwithstand- 
iiig'wiiich, they were allowed no share of the public lands ; 
nay. the usurpers, to ciiltii<nfe them, clioo-.c ratlicr to em- 
ploy slaves than citizens of Rome. Gracclius's view was 
not to make poor men rich', bin to strengthen the Republic 
by an increase of n-e!"iil le 'eilei-- ii|ion vvliicli he thought 
the safety anil welfaf ' ' !! ■'' ! - iiiled. The insurrec- 
tion and war ol \Ur ; i,. .'\ . who were not yet 
(•luelled liiniislieil liiui'. ,-. i uni i> m argument for expati- 
ating on the danser of iiiiiirj I ciU wiih slaves." 

'MJn the day wlien the tribes inel to ileleriiiiiie concerninz 
the law, the Tribune maiiiKiiiiing his cause, wliieh was in 
itself just and noble, with an eli„|ih hc.iIkh would have set 
olfa iiad one, appealed I' I iii - I i . i i i ■ icirihie and irre- 
sistible. He asked till- I :,:, .1 ii ' i.: ic. red a slave 
to a cifizvn; a mun loi/ ; , , , , , I::) ,i soldier ; 

an alien to a membe m :ii: i: r:; i: ; ,.,iil wliieli they, 
thought would be more zealous mm u , mi, rests.' Then a« 
to the miseries of the poor, he sai.l : -i'li,- wild beasts ot 
Italy have caves and dens to shelter ilicm : liut the people 
who ex|iosp their lives for the ileiViisa of Italy, are allowed 
iiotliiiiL' Inn the light and air. Tin .\ u ainlir ii]) ami down 
w nil lliiir wives ami cluldren. uillioiii li.iu-e. and without 
halHtalinii. < liir generals mock I he suldiei^ ; when in bat- 



lit I.I 



any Jtomaii cm/, n to lioiil 
land, or to have mi his esia 
and five liuiidrcd ^mall eatt 
numherofl)r,;ncn!.h,nUi, 
"Bui, iiolwitliMaiiding I 
law (obsinvcil lor some n 
public) tell at leiii;tli nnilc 



me :w;^ forbidding , 
e tiuiidreil acres of 
one hundred great 
rins ibat a eertaii: I 
■nllii-afeUic farms. I 
ions, the Ueinian 
eat benefit of the ! 
,e. The rich SMid j 
s of the lands of | 
: they cm )■ 



their poor miglihors." " Tj ruUicalc the fu; 
ployed f J I- ri II, ^l,:rc^. .So that Italy was in danger of losing 
its inhaliiianis of tree condition, (who had no encourage- 
ment to many, no uieaiis to educate children,) .init of being 
overrun witli'slaves,aiid barbarians, ibathad neither affec- 
tion for tlie Kepublie nor interest in her preservation." 



Iinii^cliolil jioiis; lor, amongst ail mat L'reai iiiDiiDcr Ot lio- 
inans, tin le is not one wliohns eitiicr a iloiiicMie allaror u 
se|iiilelMr tor his ancestors. Tli(»y light and die, solely to 
luainlain the riches and luxury of others, and are styled the 
lords of the universe, while they have not a single foot of 
ground in their possession.' " 

After much resistance from the Patricians, the 
Tribune finally procured the passage of the law: 

" And it being resolved thatTriunivirs, or three commis- 
sioners, slionhrbe eonstinited for the execution of it, the 
|ieo|il" nannil to that einj.loyinent, Tiberius himself, his 
lather III l:i\v .Appius Clnudius, and Cains (iracchus, who 
al iliis time was in rijiaiii, serving under Seipio in the Nu- 
inatini^ war. These Tri'invirs were to examine and judge 
what lands lielon'^edto the piihlic, as well as to make the in- 
tended distribution, of them." 

Befoi-e the law could bo put into operation Ti- 
berius was assassinated in the Senate House by 
certain Senators " who possessed much of the 
public lands and were extremely unwilling to part 
with them." Tiiese Senators, it is said by the 
historian, were aided by their clients and slaves, 
and the blow " which probably dispatched him, 
lie received from a man named L. Rufiis, who 
afterwards gloried in the action." Cicero, who 
was the orator and partisan of the oligaicliy,and 
whose false ghisses in regard to tiiese transactions 
have been followed by all the historians in the in- 
terest of the privileged orders, was himself con- 
strained to admit 

'= That Tiberius Gracchus came nothing short of the vir- 
tue of his lalher, or his grandfather, Africanus, but in this, 
that he forsook the party of the Senate." 

Sallust, the great and perspicacious historian, 
iiiH letter to the greatest general and statesman of 
the* ■Romans, Julius Caesar, exhorting him to re- 
store tlie Commonwealth, gives in a single sen- 



6 



tencc the whole history of Rome, after the Ro- 
man people were robbed of all ownership in the 
soil to feed the grandeur and employ the slaves 
of the nobility. He says, and I desire to mark 
the sentence: 

" Men of the lowest rank, whether occupying their farms 
at home or serviiis; in the wars, wore amply satisfied lliem- 
selves, anil ^'uvc anipli' satislaciion to their country, so long 
as tliey possessed what was sufficient to subsist them. But 
when, heins thrust out of possession of their lands by a grad- 
ual usurpation, they, through indigence and idleness, (hav- 
ing nothing to do,) could no longer have any fixed abodes, 
then they began to covet the wealth of other men, and to 
put their own liberty and the Connnonwealth to sale." 

The law procured by Tiberius Gracchus has 
been denounced by all the writers in the interest 
of the privileged classes from that day to this as 
an agrarian law, a law to take from the rich and 
to give to the poor, when the fact is, Mr. Chair- 
man, that it was a law to distribute among the 
people the lands which belonged to the public; and 
now a similar attempt is made by the party of 
oligarchs in this country to seize the Territories 
oflhis Government and plant them with slaves 
to the exclusion of freemen, and they follow the 
example of their Roman prototypes and denounce 
those who oppose them in their schemes as F^ree- 
Soilers. I do not know but that the term " agra- 
rian," taken in its true sense, might well stand 
for a translation of the term " Free-Soiler." In 
that sense, in the sense of distributing to the 
people the lands which belong to them, I have no 
hesitation in accepting the designation; and to 
show that there is as great necessity for this 
measure now as there was at the time when Ti- 
berius Gracchus described the destitution of the 
Roman people, v/ho made that Republic the mis- 
tress of the world, I will read from some high > 
authorities in regard tOxthe condition of the non- ] 
slavehoiding white man of the South, who con- 
stitute a large majority of its citizens. I shall t 
quote first the language of the Senator from Ala- 1 
buma, [Mr. Clay.] He is giving an account, in 
a speech made in Alabama, of the condition of 
his own Slate, and more particularly of his own 
county. He says: 

" In traversing that county, one will discover numerous 
farm houses, once the abode of industrious iind intelligent 
freemen, now occupied by plavcs or tenantless, deserted, 
and dilapidated ; he will observe fields, once fertile, now 
unfeneed, abandoned, and covered with those evil harbin- 
gers, fox-tail and broonisedge ; he will see the moss grow- 
ing on the moldering walls of once thrifty villages, and 
will find ' on» only master grasps the whole domain,' that 
once furnislied happy homes for a dozen white families." 

Thi.s is the language of a distinguished Senator 
from Alabama, describing his own county, and I 
should suppose that if that gentleman knew any- 
thing at all, he would know the condition of the 
county in which he resides. Nor is it to be sup- 
posed that he would exaggerate that which is by 
no means flattering to his county or his State. 

Mr. William Gregg, in a paper before the South 
Carolina Institute, handling the same subject, re- 
marks: 

" Any man who is an observer of things could hardly pass 
through our country without being struck with the fact that 
all the capital, enterprise, and intelligence is employed in 
directing slave labor ; and the consequence is, that a large 
portion of our poor white people are wholly neglected, and 
arc suflered to while away an existence in a state but on^; 
step in advance of the Indian of the forest. It is an evil of 
vast magnitude, and nothing but a change in public s.;nti- 
ment will eflecl its cure." 

I propose to read what was said in tiie Vir- 



ginia Legislature in 1832, by a gentleman who is 
now a distinguished member of this House, [Mr. 
FAtJLKNfER.] He says: 

" Slavery, it is .idmitled, is an evil. It is an institution 
which presses heavily against the best interests of the State. 
It baliishesfree white labor; it exterminates the mechanic, 
the artisan, the manufacturer ; it deprives them of occupa- 
tion ; it deprives them Qf bread ; it converts the energy of 
a community into indolence, its power into imbeciUty, its 
etficiency into weakness. Sir, being thus injurious, have 
we not a right to demand its extermination .' Shall society 
sufler, that the slaveholder may continue to gather his crop 
of human flesh.' What is his mere pecuniary claim, com- 
pared with the great interests of the common weal .' Must 
the country languish, droop, die, that the slaveholder may 
flourish ? Shall all interests be subservient to one — all rights 
subordinate to those of the slaveholder.' Has not the me- 
chanic, have not the middle classes, their rights — rights in- 
compatible with the existence of slavery .'" 

And now, sir, I shall conclude these quotations 
by reading from another very distinguished south- 
ern gentleman, who has recently been chosen 
from the very elite of the chivalry of South Car- 
olina to represent his State in the most august 
and dignified body in the land — I refer to Gov- 
ernor Hamm'oxd. Here is his testimony as to 
their condition, in an address before the South 
Carolina Institute, in 1830: 

" They obtain a precarious subsistence by occasiona 
jobs, by hunting, by fishing, by plundering fields or folds, 
and too often by what is in its etfects far worse — trading 
with slaves, and seducing them to plunder for their benefit." 

I do not know whether this picture is an accu- 
rate one or not. It is not true when applied to 
the slave States in which I have resided. It is 
not true, where slavery obtains nominally, or 
where the slaves are few; and especially it is not 
true of the city and county which I represent upon 
this floor. The working men and mechanics of 
St. Louis have too just a sense of the dignity of 
their own employments to permit themselves to 
be degraded by the competition of negro slaves. 
A man might as well attempt to educate his negro 
for the legal profession as to attempt to put him 
at a mechanical trade in competition with the 
mechanics of my district. But, sir, if it be true 
in regard to those remote southern States where 
the slaves fill every industrial avocation and em- 
ployment, why did the Carolinian stop short in his 
heart-rending description.' Why did he not ex- 
claim with the Roman tribune, " shall we prefer 
our slaves to the citizens of the Republic; men in- 
capable of bearing arms to soldiers.'" Unless 
some voice shall speak that language in tones that 
will be heard by the people, tiie history of this 
country will be written in a sentence, similar to 
that I have read from Sallust. If by gradual usurp- 
ation the people are thrust out of their lands by 
this dominating oligarchy, tliey will, as they did 
in Rome," put their own liberty and the Common- 
wealth to sale." 

It is very clear that the Senator from South 
Carolina does not prefer the citizens of tiie Re- 
public to hi.s slaves. He has, in his recent speech, 
shown that he was the moutlipiece of the privil- 
eged classes — the Cicero of this new oligarchy, 
and not a tribune of the people. In that speech 
he says: 

" The Senator from New York said yesterday that the 
whole world had abolished slavery. Ay, the name, but not 
the thing ; and all tlif powers of the earth cannot .abolish it. 
God only can do it when He repeals the fiat, ' the poor ye 
always have with you ; ' for the man who lives by daily labor, 
and scarcely lives at that, and who has to put out his labor 
in the market and take the bijst he can get for it; in short, 



your whole class of manual laborers and operatives, as you 
call them, are slaves. The difference between us is, that 
our slaves arc hired for life and well compensated ; there is 
no starvation, no begging, no want of employment among 
our people, and not too niuch employment either. Yours 
are hired by the day, not cared for, and scantily compen- 
sated, which maybe proved in the most deplorable manner, 
at any hour, in any street in any of your large towns." 

" Your slaves urn white, of your own race ; you are broth- 
ers of one blood. They are your equals in natural endow- 
ment of intellect, and they feel galled by their degradation. 
Our slaves do not vote. We give them no political power. 
Yours do vote, and being the majority, they are the depos- 
itaries of all your political power. If tliey knew the tre- 
mendous secret, that the ballot-box is stronger than an 
army with bayonets, and could combine, where would you 
be.' Your society would be reconstructed, your govern- 
ment reconstructed, your property divided, not as they have 
mistakenly attempted to initiate such proceedings by meet- 
ing in parks, with arms in their hands, but by the quiet pro- 
cess of the ballot-box. You have been making war upon 
us to our very hearth-stones. How would you like for us to 
send lecturers or agitators North ; to teach these people 
this, to aid and assist in combining, and to lead them ! 

"Mr. Wilson and others. Send them along. 

"Mr. Ha.mmond. You say, send them North. There is no 
need of that. They are coming here. They are thunder- 
ing at our doors for homesteads of one hundred and sixty 
acres of land for nothing, and southern Senators are sup- 
portingit." * * * * "Transient and temporary 
causes have thus far been your preservation. The great 
West has been open to your surplus population, and your 
liordes of semi barbarian emigrants, who are crowding in 
year by year. They make a great movement, and you call 
It progress." 

Sir, he prefers his slaves to the citizens of the 
Republic, and would have the latter deprived of 
the right of elective franchise, as his negro slaves 
are. He denounces the man who lives by daily 
labor, and the whole class of manual laborers and 
operatives, as slaves. He characterizes our for- 
eign population as a horde of semi-barbarous em- 
igrants, and he would deny them a share of the 
public lands upon which to build their homes, 
and educate their children. How would this gen- 
tleman have appeared leading the Democratic 
column in the days of General .Jackson's admin- 
istration .' Why, sir, there would have been some- 
body else read out of that party— rather different 
fersons from those who are now being read out. 
f this is. Democratic doctrine, it is a novel doc- 
trine to me, though I have been reared a Demo- 
crat. I make no complaint, however, of having 
been read out of the party. I should as soon think 
of complaining of being i-ead out of a chain-gang. 
[Laughter.] It is not a Democracy which I should 
wish to sustain, by any means. I have always 
understood that Democracy concerns itself more 
about personal rights than about rights of prop- 
erty — the rights of individuals rather than those 
of monopolizing institutions. In this I may be 
mistaken, and certainly I am mistaken, if the 
revelations under this new dispensation are to be 
received. 

Suppose this doctrine had obtained at the time 
California was acquired. When tie acquired Cal- 
ifornia, and the gold di-scovcries wero niade there, 
it is very well known that a working^nan could 
earn in California $1,000 a year by his labor. 
That was then the value of an able-bodied slave 
in the old slave States. Do yoh not suppose duit 
a great many of them would have been carried i'* 
California under such a stimulus as that.' A dis- 
tinguished politician of Virginia, in a letter which 
he addressed to the public press, or to some indi- 
vidual, pending the last presidential election, in 
sp'^nVi.^jr r.f tiiio subject, calculated that Virginia 



had lost several hundred million dollars by not 
being permitted to carry her slaves to California; 
" because," he said, " if a slave could have been 
taken to California, where ho could earn '>sl,000 a 
year, instead of being worth $1,000, he would 
have been worth $5,000. Why, sir, the profit of 
the business of carrying slaves to California would 
have been greater than the profits of the African 
slave trade, without its perils. If the decision of 
1857 had been made in 1847, so that slaves could 
have been removed to California, the whole de- 
mand for labor in that land of gold would have 
been supplied by slaves, and the busy marts of 
trade, and the gold mines of that country, would 
have been blackened with slaves, and not a foot 
of land in the whole State would have been left 
for the white man to stand upon, and in that way 
the free white men of this country would have 
been excluded from their own inheritance — the 
land they won by their own strong arms. 

That is what these gentlemen call Democracy. 
They are willing to see the free white men of the 
country excluded from every Territory, and es- 
pecially from those where the reward of labor is 
great; and they claim that it is their constitutional 
right that it shall be done; and they call it De- 
mocracy. Why, sir, I want to know whether 
the white man has not the same right of property 
in his own labor as the slaveholder has in the la- 
bor of his slave .' If you exclude the free white 
man from the Territories, do not you diminish 
the value of his labor just as you diminish the 
value of the slave to the owner by excluding 
them.' Which are we to choose between, the 
millions and millions of free white men in this 
j country, or the few thousand slaveholders .' Was 
the Government founded to protect rights of prop- 
erty in slave labor, and not to protect the rights 
of freemen to their own labor.' This Democracy 
is very tender of the property of the slaveholder, 
and is utterly regardless of the rights of property 
of any other class of people in the Territories. 

Now, I apply another test. The oligarchy say 
that they have the right to take their slaves into 
the Territories of the Union, and employ them as 
they see fit, under the Constitution of the United 
States, and nobody can take that right from them. 
They can take them into the Territories and make 
them mechanics, and work them in the mines, 
in the Victories, or in any other way; and if white 
men don't like that sort of competition the De- 
mocracy will tell them to go somewhere else. In 
Russia, a man can educate his serf or slave, and 
they frequently do, and make lawyers, doc tors, and 
merchants of them. Now, suppose these south- 
ern gentlemen should exercise their constitutional 
right of educating their slaves, and put them into 
the learned professions; do you suppose the peo- 
ple of this country would submit, for one instant, 
to this Russian iimovation .' Would there not be a 
cry raised from one end of this land to the other; 
and why.' Have they not the same constitutional 
'i right to make lawyers, doctors, and merchants, 
j of their slaves as they have to make them me- 
jchanics.' Precisely the same. There is no dif- 
j ference whatever. But the Russian nobles never 
M engage in those avocations themselves, and there- 
1 ''-i-e they do not feel the degradation of putting 
' theX- serfs into the professions. But with us 
j that N'ould be trenching upon the occupation 
-i of the slaveholders themselves — the oligarchs — 



\ 



and here the shoe pinches. They demand that 
they shall l)e allowed to put their slaves to work 
side by side with mechanics and laborers; and, 
in the same breath, they claim that no slave 
shall be allowed to deg:rade the' employments in 
which they condescend to engage. I contend that 
Uiey have no more right tolnflict this degrada- 
tion on mechanics, by placing slave labor in com- 
petition with theii- free labor. Not a v/hit more; 
and, as tliey exercise the right of excluding slaves 
from the professions in which they are themselves 
engaged, (as they do by inhibiting their educa- 
tion,) I say they admit the right of others to ex- 
clude them from the mechanical trades, and from 
competition with every freenflan who follows an 
honest calling. 

There was a time when this Democratic party 
was not Democratic in name alone. There was 
a time when this party took ground against priv- 
ileged classes, and against every attempt on the 
part of capitalists to usurp the power of this Gov- 
ernment, and pervert it to their own purposes. I 
instance the case of the United Slates Bank, where 
the stockholders undertook to force this Govern- 
ment to allow them to bank on the national rev- 
enue. The Democratic party took issue with 
them, and put them down. Since that time we 
- have had the turilTdiscussion, where the manufac- 
turing interests of the country — a vast aggrega- 
tion of wealth — undertook to influence legisUition, 
and effect the passage of laws for their especial 
benefit, in derogation of the rights and interestd 
of the working classes of the country. The Dem- 
ocratic party took ground against the high pro- 
tective tariff', and defeated it. 

And now here is another question in which this 
struggle between capital and laboris presented in 
its most odious and revolting form. Here is a 
colossal aggregation of wealth invested in negroes, 
which undertakes to seize this Government to 
pervert it lo its own purpose, and to prevent the 
freemen of the country from entering the Terri- 
tories except in competition with slave labor; and 
the Democratic party, instead of standing where 
it used to stand, in opposition to these anti-Dem- 
ocratic measures, is as servile a tool of the oli- 
garchy as are the negro slaves themselves. 
I This is no question of North and South. It is 



a question between those who contend for caste 
and privilege, and those who neither have nor 
desire to have privileges beyond their fellows. It 
is the old question that has always, in all free 
countries, subsisted — the question of i!ie wealthy 
and crafty few endeavoring to steal from the 
masses of the people all the political power of the 
Government. Those gentleman are wrong who 
say that it is a queijtion of North and South. If 
there is one class of people on tiiis continent more 
interested than another in putting a stop to the 
extension of slavery into the Territories, it is the 
free while laborers of the South. They have in- 
finitely more interest ill the matter than any other 
class of the people, because they liave felt the 
pressure of the institution. They have been shut 
out from all ownersliip in the soil, and driven out 
of all employment in the Slates where slavery 
now exists; and should we allow the territories 
of the Government to be closed against Xhem, 
they will have no escape from the oppression 
which has ground them to the dust. No, sir, it is 
not a question between the North and South. It 
is a question which commends itself especially to 
the non-slaveholding and laboring white men of 
the South. 

Now, sir, this controversy will, in my opinion, 
end in great good. In the struggle which term- 
inated the American Revolution, the principles of 
'Iberty were so deeply instilled in the heart of the 
people, that when that struggle endetl, the slaves 
were emancipated in a large number of the States, 
from the impulse which the love ofliberty received 
in that contest. This struggle, which is on the 
same principle, will terminate in the same way. 
I know thatthereare as good men in the South now 
as there were in the days of the Revolution. There 
are men — slaveholders — now there who burn to 
emulate tlie noble exanijjles of the illustrious men 
of the Revolution; and the noble State which I 
have the honor, in part, to represent on this door, 
will, in my opinion, have the glory of leading the 
way in this magnanimous career. Her honor and 
interest alike beckon her, and that she will not 
be insensible to these high motives nor regardless 
of the glorious destiny which awaits her, the le- 
gend which she bears upon her shield, " salxu 
populi suprema lex esto," sufficiently attests. 



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